William Campbell Gault 37 min read

'She's not right,' Joe finally says of his wife Vera, but she's not mad, just not what he wants, so he heads to the Center, where a man dissatisfied with women can simply roll his own.

William Campbell Gault's 1951 story spins a sharp AI-and-social-SF tale from custom-built mates in a woman-scarce future. Clever, wry golden-age SF. Read it for a pointed story about a man who orders up his ideal wife, and discovers what he actually got.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

37 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Lawrence Woromay